Vow

A vow to the LORD serves as Absalom's cover story here — he invokes a sacred religious obligation to secure David's permission and a legitimate reason to gather people at Hebron.

The vow Paul has been keeping surfaces at Cenchreae when he cuts his hair — a physical act marking the completion of a sacred commitment made during his Corinthian ministry.

The vow here is a solemn self-binding oath taken by forty men not to eat or drink until Paul is dead — a formal religious commitment weaponized in service of murder.

Vow offerings appear here in a list of things that must be fulfilled at the central sanctuary — these are sacred commitments that require the communal, God-facing context the designated place provides.

Vow here introduces the section's central argument — that promises made to God are not aspirational statements but binding commitments He will hold you to, carrying the same weight as a formal legal obligation.

The covenant pledge is compared here to vows to illustrate its binding seriousness — yet the blood-sealed commitment at Sinai surpassed any ordinary vow, marking both parties permanently and physically.